This is a course blog for the classes on digital government and social media in the public sector" class taught by Professor Ines Mergel at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. The blog posts include comments and ideas from MPA, MAIR and EMPA students studying the use of new technologies in the public sector.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

How to react on social media during organizational crisis

Organizations, whether public, private or non-profit,
increasingly has engaged in social networking platforms for various reasons
such as reaching their audience, promoting participation and transparency,
benefitting from collaboration and crowdsourcing, and advertising or improving
their products and services. Besides these factors, social media also has
become a crucial tool for organizations during crises. As seen in the cases of
Bunny Butcher and Qantas Airlines or Commonwealth Edison, depending on responses
and reactions of organizations and its audiences, social media can play
negative or positive role in crisis management.

Organizational crisis are the situations or events, which
develop in an unexpected and unusual way, and may result in loss of legitimacy and
prestige of organizations. They can prevent organizations from doing their
activities, and even threaten to their existence. Thus, in these crises,
interactive communication becomes crucial to build up trust between
organization and its audiences. It is widely acknowledged that social media has become one
of the most significant medium to perform interactive communication during
organizational crisis today. However, still some organizations might perceive
social media as a tool for only realizing their aims mentioned above without
taking into account the negative and positive outcomes of social media use
during crises. Thus, while developing a social media strategy, it is necessary for
organizations to consider and prepare how to use social media to respond crisis.

I think what we have learnt from case studies like Bunny
Butcher and ComEd is that time, language, content, clarity and accuracy of
response are among the important points which organizations should pay
attention during crisis. Messages can go viral in social media and increase the
negative effects of a crisis. In this sense, timely responses are important. As
being in social media means being interactive and providing feedback, non-responsiveness
is not a solution for crisis. More than that, social media presence requires
constant monitoring of what audience is talking about, and in this process organizations
might see and catch alerts or signals of an incoming crisis. Thus, a timely
response based on active presence in social media helps organizations to be
able to overcome by crisis even before they come.

The language is as crucial as
timely response. A defensive or accusing language does not work well during
crisis. Also an apology may not be enough to mitigate negative flow of social media
posts. Sharing accurate information and accepting the responsibility are more
helpful than arguing or defending the legitimacy of the activities of organization.
People want organizations to make convincing and sufficient explanation and take
the responsibility whatever the outcome is rather than arguing with them. Organizations
should grasp the feeling that people express through social media in an unexpected
situation. Knowing the mood of people via social media can helps organization
to develop an efficient language to deal with an unusual event or situation. Therefore,
the style of response on social media can decrease negative effects of a crisis.

Overall, public, private or non-profit organization should
be aware that social media use may sometime create reverse effects in any
unusual case rather than helping organizational goals, so they should be ready
for unexpected situations and events. A responsive, timely, responsible and
accurate social media reaction is essential for organizations to mitigate
negative effects and eventually overcome the crisis.

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